A Healthier Wood

Abstract

As if it wasn’t enough to have their homes inundated, possessions destroyed, and lives uprooted, Gulf Coast evacuees of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina had to endure another indignity: The trailers given to them by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for safe shelter made them sick. Trailer interiors used composite woods, and the urea-formaldehyde resins that bound those composites were emitting formaldehyde into the air inside. In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention tested the trailers and found formaldehyde levels of up to 590 ppb, which is several times the limit deemed acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency. A petition put together by the Sierra Club and signed by many evacuees described some of the symptoms. “Their lungs burn. Their eyes tear,” it read. “Many suffer from headaches and other illnesses that have required frequent doctor visits and, in some cases, hospitalization.” The episode highlighted the long-standing issue of formaldehyde ...